About Eagan Dean

Eagan Dean, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor of English at The College of Wooster where I teache nineteenth century American literature, supervise undergraduate researchers, and contribute to the Women’s. Gender, and Sexuality Studies curriculum.

I teach and study U.S. literature and cultural history, focusing on early American and nineteenth century periods. I specialize in the cultural history of gender, particularly the genealogy of ideas about gender instability and trans figures, which I study through archival, book historical, and transfeminist lenses.

My research has appeared in Legacy, Women’s Studies, and ESQ. I have work forthcoming from the Harvard Library Bulletin about bluestocking genders in the archive and from Transgender Studies Quarterly considering settler uses of effeminate characters. This research has been supported by the Houghton Library of Harvard University and Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

I am currently working on the book Inventing American Gender: Nineteenth Century Literary Gender and its Uses that investigates how nineteenth century authors invent gender categories for use in their political rhetoric.

I am also an affiliated scholar with Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research and the Essays Editor for Scholarly Editing.

I earned my PhD in Literatures in English with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Rutgers University in 2024.